We converged at the Molly Malone statue at the bottom of Grafton Street, which is Dublin's premier pedestrianised shopping street. The irony of meeting at a statue depicting a fishmonger was not lost on some. After handing out leaflets to many extremely confused passers by, we crossed to the other side of the road to discuss tactics (and to get away from the fortune teller and the dancing puppets on a wire next to us who were wrecking our heads).

The 'conga against consumer culture' was fun. Its interested to see how many people actually stop and pay attention once they hear a bit of noise or commotion. We walked up the east side of the street in a line, blocking the entrances temporarily to Burger King, McDonalds, Champion Sports, Boots Chemists, Marks & Spencers, BT2, another Burger King (seriously), Marathon Sports, and a good few others. We shouted out stuff like 'participate by not participating' and 'dont buy sweatshop labour', all the time handing out subvert flyers and leaflets detailing healthy alternatives to mainstream shopping.

At the top of Grafton Street, next to the already erected Christmas Tree (put up over two weeks ago, for fucks sake! Does the 'shopping season' start earlier every year or what??) we stopped, and then decided we would have a race to the top floor of the Stephens Green Shopping Centre, so we could shout out our message and throw leaflets down to the consumers on the two lower floors. On the count of 3, we all charged into the centre, attracting lots of attention, dropping leaflets as we went. The less fit people stayed on the ground floor (the stairs being too much to handle!) and talked to people in shops about what we were doing.

After predictably being ejected from the centre by thug security guards, we went up to the Jervis Street Shopping Centre on the other side of the river. We went in the back entrance and rode the escalator to the top floor, but our presence had already been noted by security and as soon as we started to ron amok, they snatched our posters and flyers from us and forcibly ejected us.

On the way out of Jervis Street, one security guard was manhandling one of our crew who pushed him away. The guard then grabbed him and pushed him up against a wall on the outside of the centre, pinning him back, saying he was keeping him there until the Garda (Irish police) arrived. We swarmed around the guard and tried to get him to let go but he was having none of it. More security arrived then and the situation got very tense with lots of pushing and shouting. I was saying to the senior looking security guard, "let him go, we are leaving peacefully" over and over, the message must have got through.

The security then tried to calm down their friend, and he wouldnt let go of the BND protestor for a while, even though they were telling him to back off! Eventually he let go, and the guards started arguing among themselves. We backed off and let them fight each other, but once we got a distance away we let up a cheer of victory, rubbing it in his face.

We met back up on Henry Street and handed out more subvertising leaflets, advertising '100% off your next purchase!' and 'discount on all goods - the only price is your soul'. We then went up through the ILAC Shopping Centre, handing out whatever leaflets we had left (a couple of thousand distributed at this stage). We stopped at McDonalds at the Parnell Street entrance and quietly went in, putting leaflets on tables and handing them to people queueing for "food".

We were finishing up outside when a McDonalds worker came outside to us. She told us she fucking hated the place, and was only there because she couldnt get another better job, her english wasnt that good. She thanked us for coming in and giving out the leaflets, and asked to meet up with us later on. We gave her a big cheer and a round of applause, she was laughing and happy with this but told us to not cheer so loud, or her boss would see her fraternising with troublemakers!

BND Dublin was good fun, thanks to everyone who came down to the action.

regards